Donald Trump has long claimed that he was a star baseball player, even claiming in a 2013 tweet that his high school coach at New York Military Academy called him the “best he ever coached.”
I played football and baseball, sorry, but said to be the best bball player in N.Y. State-ask coach Ted Dobias-said best he ever coached.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 3, 2013
Other reports, around the time of his first presidential run, had Trump claiming that he was scouted by the Philadelphia Phillies, with his coach quoted as saying that he turned down overtures from the Phillies because “he wanted to go to college and make real money.”
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But now, Trump’s high school stats have been unearthed, and undercut that claim.
Last fall, a site called Football Archeology did some digging and found the numbers, which were published on X last week by sportswriter Rick Reilly. Reilly, author of the book Commander in Cheat, has long specialized in knocking down myths about Trump’s golf game, as well as his successes in the golf business.
Per the stats, Trump had a total of three hits in his high school career. At least among the games that were mentioned in the newspaper that Football Archeology found, he went 0-for-10 as a sophomore, 2-for-9 as a junior, and 1-for-21 as a senior.
Here are the facts about Donald Trump’s high school baseball career, when he says he was “the best player in NY.” …
Soph year: 0-10 (.000)
Jun year: 2-9 (.222)
Sen year: 1-21 (.047)
The man is one giant sack of bullsh*t.Research by https://t.co/soJ4L7KNIH pic.twitter.com/rdtutrqKcf
— Rick Reilly (@ReillyRick) December 6, 2025
As Football Archeology pointed out, it’s not just that Trump didn’t play well. He didn’t make much an impression at all.
“If Trump were one of the top baseball players in New York State, the game reports would have mentioned his performance, and a profile piece or two might have covered his many skills. However, Trump made so little impression on reporters that he went unmentioned in the thirteen articles, aside from appearing in the box scores,” the site writes.
Slate, back in 2020, looked at the question of whether Trump was ever any good at baseball.
Trump once claimed, in a book by Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade, that “the first time I saw my name in the newspaper” was when he ” got the winning home run in a game between our academy and Cornwall High School,” and the headline was “TRUMP HOMERS TO WIN THE GAME.”
Slate could find no such headline — and determined that NYMA did not play Cornwall that year — nor could Football Archeology. Trump also claimed to have once attended a tryout alongside future Hall of Famer Willie McCovey, but Slate found that unlikely, because McCovey was eight years older than Trump.
“Based on my reporting, it seems like Trump was a solid defensive first baseman but a bad hitter,” the Slate story said.
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
